Note 22 — Chapter XVI · FUNERAL CEREMONIES—continued

The earth-throwing ceremony is of especial interest, because it would seem to be a relic of burial. Earth is thrown three times on the corpse before it is burnt. In connexion with the idea that the ceremony is a relic of a previous stage, in which the Todas buried their dead, it may be mentioned that a ceremony with some points of similarity is performed at the funerals of the Hill Arrians of the Western Ghats,22 who bury their dead. A man of the same clan as the deceased takes a new cloth and tears from it a narrow strip which he fastens upon himself. He then goes backwards to the place fixed for the grave and digs with a hoe, removing three hoes full of earth. In this ceremony he is said to be calling on the earth to give up six feet for the dead. There is a suggestive resemblance between the ceremonies performed by these two hill tribes of South-west India, which lends some support to the view that the earth-throwing ceremony of the Todas is a relic of inhumation.